


If I break your legs, can you leave me then?

by ADyingFlower



Series: I'm only doing this because I love you [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Attempted Murder, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Captivity, Dark Keith (Voltron), Escape, Kidnapping, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Obsessive Behavior, Past Character Death, Stockholm Syndrome, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 21:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADyingFlower/pseuds/ADyingFlower
Summary: Lance left him. Lancelefthim.Blood trickles down his chin from his abused lip, but he doesn’t care.He can’t care. Not when his heart is being fuckingripped out of his chest!Kneeling down under the bed, his short nails scramble at the wooden plank, yanking it upward with a loud creak.He didn’t want to do this, but if Lance won’t come back to him, then -Pulling his father’s old shotgun out from under the floorboard, Keith snarls under his breath.- Then he’ll kill Lance himself.(Lance escapes, and Keith almost makes a decision he can't ever come back from)





	If I break your legs, can you leave me then?

**Author's Note:**

> 7/12

Lance has been so quiet recently.

Keith’s done away with the ankle chain, leaving the boy free to walk around the house. The door and windows are locked, of course, he's not that stupid, and the keys hidden on his person, but it’s the illusion of freedom that counts.

Yet he barely gets up, only to use the bathroom or limply play with his cat when it nudges him for attention, dull eyes fixed on his lap at all times. He just sleeps the day away, or stares at nothing for hours, not even bothering to touching any of the books or food Keith has left for him. They've gone back to force-feeding, but at least Lance no longer fights him. He just sits there and lets Keith spoon feed him, and Keith can't summon any of the perverse pleasure he used to get from it when Lance never meets his eyes anymore. 

It's like he's living with a doll instead of the Lance he knows. 

Nothing Keith seems to do helps. Nothing! He's tried affection, he's tried buying him new things left and right, he even offered to let him write another letter to his family, despite his utter conviction to cut off all contact besides him with Lance. 

_That_ , had garnered a reaction at least. Lance had stared at the paper he was handed for a long time, long enough for Keith to get started on dinner. When he came back to the living room with the carbonara, the letter was gone and Lance was back to staring at the wall, refusing to answer any of Keith's questions about it and barely taking three bites out of his carbonara before Keith had to take over. 

(He found the letter crinkled in a ball under the coffee table while Lance was taking a shower, something he's been doing all the time lately. 

Some of it was Spanish, unfortunately, but Keith had taught himself the basics during the months it took him to built up the courage to actually take him home. It was an excellent way to kill time when waiting for Lance's shift to end or for his class to be over and done with. 

It read:

_Dear Mami and Papi,_

_I'm doing ~~~~ ~~i~~   ~~not good~~ ~~please~~ fine. I'm eating okay  ~~keith cooks so much but I'm never hungry~~ and I  ~~can't~~ am sleeping fine  ~~i have nighmares about james~~ _

_It's summer now, so I hope you're taking care of yourselves out there in the_ (hot/heat/warmth) . _~~I wish~~ It's hot here too  ~~keith will probably make me edit this out~~ _

_~~i hate him~~ _

~~_i don't know_ ~~

~~_everything's confusing now_ ~~

[several more short phrases, all of them too scratched out to read]

_Did Lisa have the baby yet? It's been over half a year ~~oh god~~ I hope they were born healthy _(?). _Their uncle Lance loves them_

_I love you guys, forever and_ [Spanish word Keith doesn't recognize)

~~_Keith supposedly loves me. I don't think he knows what love truly is_ ~~

~~_Is love supposed to hurt?_ ~~

_Please don't worry about me, I'm not hurt ~~mami i killed a man it's all my fault~~   _

~~_i want to die i want to go home my head's a_ ~~ [he doesn't know the word. he doesn't really want to either]

_I miss you ~~i think i'm going insane~~ and  _

~~~~[too scratched out to read]

[ineligible writing]

[huge ineligible letters, paper has ripped from the pressure of the pencil]

[he can make out the words "desert", "blood", "head", and "Keith"]

["Keith" repeats several times, most of them furiously crossed out, some even looked like they were stabbed with the lead tip]

And then, in near perfect writing:

_I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry._

_I don't think I'm ever coming home again._

Keith threw the letter out, and tried to pretend his guts weren't threatening to rebel for the rest of the night.)

He doesn’t understand - the body’s gone and buried already. It can’t hurt them anymore, or try to take Lance away from him, so why does Lance keep flinching away from him? He won’t even let Keith hold him anymore, whining quietly and wiggling away from his touch, those same fucking empty eyes drifting aimlessly around the house. Eventually, he just goes limp in Keith's hold as Keith cuddles with him, a dead weight numbing his arms until Keith is forced to let go less his loses feelings in his limbs.

It’s - annoying. Annoying and frustrating and it makes him want to claw his fucking skin off, anything to get away from the oppressive sadness lingering around them.

They were doing so good! Lance would cuddle up next to him willingly, even looked pleased when Keith would let him read books instead of spiteful. Would let their hands touch over dinner and sing along to the radio beautifully. He would even let Keith kiss his cheeks and touch his thighs without flinching! But now they’re back to the very beginning because of James Fucking Griffin. Maybe even worse than before.

Way to teach Keith never to be overdue on a loan payment again. Greenhouses don’t pay for themselves, afterall. Or the copious amount of drugs he keeps under the bathroom sink for all the worse case scenarios he can think off.

His dad’s inheritance is hefty, but he knows it won’t last forever, so he’s been saving up from the miscellaneous jobs he works whenever he drugs Lance to sleep. By the end of the year, he’s planning to quit and to start anew in the desert with his sweetheart - like all those living off the grid shows one of his foster mothers adored. He already has the solar panels and rainwater catchers, now all he needs is a consistent source of food in order to limit his trips outside their little paradise. 

Swiping at the sweat on his forehead, he finally puts down the shovel, smiling a little bit at how the baby plants are doing. Lance would look so cute in here - maybe with a sunhat, a streak of dirt on his cheek. Maybe in the future he could convince Lance to wear a sundress - he might balk at the prospect of wearing traditionally feminine clothes, but Keith is already practically drooling at the thought of that soft fabric against Lance's thighs. Never mind the color contrast.

Maybe by then, their relationship would have progressed to sex, so Keith could just bury his head casually between those soft legs of his. Just the thought of it makes a cold shudder run up his spine, despite the summer heat burning into his scalp and exposed shoulders.

That’s it. Even if Lance protests, even if he won't look him in the eye, he wants his cuddles. Now.

Admittedly, he tries to clean up after himself a little bit, but impatience gets the best of him, as usual. That’s what his papa always used to tell him, anyhow, with a fond voice whenever Keith would skim over cleaning up his toys or eating his dinner in favor of more exciting things.

Pausing, he clenches the fabric around his heart, gaze lost.

He hasn’t…thought about his father in that kind of context in months. Maybe years. It’s always been so painful, to think of those brighter times, where they were happy and his father wasn't buried six feet under and Keith didn't have scars lining his back in the shape of belts and angry fists. Most of his memories now are lined with resentment for the years that came afterward.

But - not this time.

Thanks, Lance. Sincerely.

Keith tilts his head back, closing his eyes as the desert wind provides a cool relief to the dry heat of the summer. Always out looking towards the sky, like his father taking a smoke in the middle of the night, his head tipped towards the stars like it had the answers he was always looking for out in it's inky endlessness. 

Opening his eyes, he smiles a little bit, remembering how his father used to beckon him out of his hiding spot always without fail, sitting him on his lap to count out all the stars with him. If he was lucky, he would get stories about his mother, but most of them were about his father's army days or his own childhood. 

Those were the good days. But he has more good days in front of him, they just have to get over this one last hurdle. Together. 

Laughing, he trots up the stairs to his house, making sure to stomp his filthy boots on the rug before opening the door with a loud, “Honey, I’m home!”

Usually, Lance would at least roll his eyes at that, though he hasn't even bothered to look up recently. One time, though, he managed to make him laugh, so he hasn’t given up trying yet.

But nothing. 

Why

is

there

nothing

?

There's no teenager in the bed, or at the table. There's nobody inside. 

Nothing. 

Slowly, his eyes travel from one end of the room to the other. “Lance?”

Empty.

Striding forward, he bashes open the bathroom door, desperate gaze flickering from corner to corner. “Lance?”

Empty.

Next the kitchen, rapidly searching through every cupboard big enough to hide a teenager, like a demented game of hide and seek. “Lance!”

Biting his lip harshly, Keith glares at nothing, hands clenching and unclenching by his side. The keys to the car and the house are still in his pocket, so how -?

His fingers twitch.

In his worries about Lance and their situation, lost in thought, Keith forgot to fucking lock the door on his way out of the house this morning. The most simple but vital in all his preparations to keep Lance contained, and he forgot to do it. 

“Fuck!” He screams, kicking over the coffee table, sending several of Lance’s current novels and a couple of well worn mugs toppling to the floor, crashing, crashing, crashing… “Fucking shit!”

Blue’s gone too. Of fucking course it is, Lance is way too attached to the shitty mongrel. Should have fucking thrown it out the window when he had the chance. Should have killed it in front of Lance to show him not to piss off Keith, to warn him of the consequences of crossing him, or trying to _leave_ him. 

There’s only one option he has. Only one option left.

Throwing off his work gloves, he snatches several bottles of water and a couple of granola bars while he’s at it, stuffing them in belt bag. The handcuffs he never should have taken off to begin with - of course the passiveness was a lie. Was everything they had a lie?!

Lance left him. Lance _left_ him.

Blood trickles down his chin from his abused lip, but he doesn’t care.

He can’t care. Not when his heart is being fucking _ripped out of his chest!_

Kneeling down under the bed, his short nails scramble at the wooden plank, yanking it upward with a loud creak.

He didn’t want to do this, but if Lance won’t come back to him, then -

Pulling his father’s old shotgun out from under the floorboard, Keith snarls under his breath.

\- Then he’ll kill Lance himself.

-

He doesn’t find Lance until a little before sunset.

The only reason he finds him to begin with is because he sees the flash of grey fur darting between some vegetation on the hills to the side of the dirt road he's been driving at a snails pace for hours. Curiosity is what makes him turn off the car, determination is what makes him follow the faint desperate meows he can hear the instant he's on his feet.

The shotgun bumps against his thigh with every footstep, and he’s already thumbing the handle by the time he turns around the large rock.

Lance is there, sprawled on his side in the shade of the blue palo verde tree and some piled rocks. His eyes are closed, hands loose by his face as Blue paws at Lance’s face, looking back and forth between its owner and Keith with an expression he can't read (its not his cat and they both know it, content to ignore each other except when it comes to Lance's attention, both of them drawn into that star's orbit helplessly. he's comparing himself to a cat now, great), but thinks might be something along the lines of asking for help. Its blue eyes stare into his own for several long moments, before it switches its attention back to trying to rouse Lance by patting his face.

Keith fingers the gun, keen eyes watching the situation for several long moments, but slowly, he swings it around to hang across his back instead. Kneeling down next to Lance, he muses that even in the desert, filthy from sweat and with circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, he’s still the most beautiful person Keith has ever seen.  

His fingers slowly rest against Lance’s cheek, reverent in this final touch. So -

He frowns. Lance’s skin is never this dry, it’s always so soft, soft as a newborn’s hand. He takes such religious care of his skin, even when he's so depressed he barely gets out of bed. 

So, why?

Other facts slowly begin to add up. The strange way he’s positioned (like he fell misstep in looking for shade and grew too tired to get back up again), the harsh heaves of his chest under Keith’s palm, Blue's panicked whines, the once steady and calming heartbeat pounding double, triple time underneath his palm.

Keith’s eyes widen.

When he left, he took all of his canisters of water with him. None of them were missing, so that means Lance has been out walking in the summer sun for hours _with no water_.

“Baby?” He whispers, shaking Lance’s shoulder lightly. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

No response. Not even a flutter of his eyelashes. The only sign Lance is even alive is his unsteady breathes, his too fast heartbeat. He's dying of severe dehydration right in front of him.

It would be easy - poetic even, to leave him to die here. Teach him for trying to run from Keith.

But then Lance whimpers, the smallest of sounds, and he feels his heart shatter right in his chest.

“This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” he says sternly, hefting Lance up into his arms bridal style. One of the Cuban boy’s arms dangles limply, his head rolling back uncomfortably, and Keith’s throat feels uncomfortably dry in a way that has nothing to with the heat or dehydration.

Blue follows on his heels as he slowly walks back to the car, having to stop every few steps to adjust Lance’s weight so he wouldn't drop him. On one of these stops, Lance’s head lolls around enough from his shuffling that his cheek presses right against Keith’s chest.

And that’s the way he stays, for the rest of the walk back to the car, Keith’s stolen sneakers swaying with every step.

Eventually, they reach his car, Keith having to awkwardly balance Lance in his arms enough to grab the door handle. When he lays Lance out on the backseat (oh so carefully, just like that night after the club so long ago), he has to just stop and stare at his darling from where he's straddling his waist.

Over six months, and here they've come, full circle. Keith pining desperately after a boy who couldn't care less about him.

“I love you,” he whispers, thumbing a sweat soaked lock behind Lance’s ear. “So damn much.”

Blue meows from outside break him out of his revere, enough that he opens up his belt bag and takes out of one his canteens, along with the syringe he brought along with him. He ignore the Flunitrazepam at the bottom of the bag, grabbed from the back of the bathroom cabinet despite all his promises to never use it again. To never see Lance be that sick again.

Lance won't be around to feel that terribly sick again afterwards regardless, now.

It’s a slow process, hand feeding Lance water through the syringe in his mouth and pressing on his throat to get him to swallow. But by the time Keith’s finished canteen #2, it’s night outside and Lance’s heart has finally slowed down to a more reasonable pace, though he still shows no sign of waking up.

That's fine. Keith would honestly prefer if he slept through the whole thing. 

Getting out of the car, Keith pins a nasty glare at Blue, who’s patiently giving itself a bath in the shade behind the wheel. He wants to run it over _so_ badly, but before his hands can even twitch towards his car keys, it's hopping into the backseat and on Lance’s curled up legs, looking so damn pleased with itself that he wants to hang it by its entrails, like one of his foster fathers did to the neighborhood cats in front of all of the kids.

“Fine.” He spits out, slamming the back car door shut and stomping over to the driver seat. The shotgun gets dropped in the passenger seat, and with one last glance towards Lance’s sleeping form, he starts the car and turns around, none of that giddiness from this same car ride six months, just a weary, resigned sort of grief.

-

“You know,” Keith starts out conversationally, staring at Lance. “You were actually pretty close to town, another three miles and you would have found help. Is that what you wanted, huh? To get as far from me as possible?”

Lance doesn’t say anything in return, eyes still closed in exhaustion. His breathing has calmed down though after canteen #3, as well as some of the dryness receding, so he’s not too worried about his lack of consciousness. He'll live through the next couple of hours, and that's what's most important.

The shotgun still rests on his lap from where’s he sitting on the hastily fixed coffee table, watching Lance sleep in their bed. His ankle is back to being locked to the post underneath the bed, but Lance doesn't seem to notice, his lips parted and the messy sprawl of his limbs from where Keith had roughly dropped him after carrying him from the car and up the stairs. The collar is even out on the nightstand, in case he starts to show any sign of wakefulness. 

He’s done with being nice. It's never done him much good in the past, regardless. It's much easier to revert to schoolyard fights and the protective shell inside of him rather than the squirming mess of emotions wiggling in his chest.  

Putting the shotgun down on the table next to him, he stands up. Climbing up on to the bed, he hovers above his lover for a long moment, just watching Lance’s face, the way his eyes move under his eyelids in sleep and the way his fingers twitch. Memorizes it like it's his favorite scene in a novel, something shiny to hide away in his memories and take out under the light to inspect it on rainy days. His beautiful, vulnerable sweetheart. His darling. The only thing that matters in his life. 

Then, he reaches for Lance’s belt buckle.

“Couldn’t you just have listened?” He begs, and to his horror, tears are already forming in his eyes as his fingers fumble on the clasp. “I don’t ask for much, all I want is for you to stay with me. But no, you had to run away from me the first chance you got because _you fucking hate me!”_

Keith slams his hands on the mattress on each side of Lance’s hips, belt quickly discarded loudly onto the floor. He starts pushing up Lance’s shirt, exposing the lean line of his stomach and chest. “I know you do! I see it in the way you look at me after Griffin! So what? I killed one fucking person who tried to take you away from me, and that’s it? All of this effort to create this home for us, _wasted_?” His fingers fumble at the button to his jeans, but soon enough he just _yanks,_ ripping open the zipper in the process.

He palms himself roughly, trying to force his body into arousal. When that's not enough, he slides his hand into pants and starts to jerk himself off, trying to focus on Lance half undressed underneath him with half lidded eyes and not on the devastation threatening to choke him into submission. 

" _Shit_." It's not working. He slips his hand out of his underwear, deciding to focus on getting Lance pants off before worrying about his own body's lack of response. 

“God,” he whimpers, pausing just enough to wipe at the tears with his forearm, cutting off the sob right in his throat so only a high pitched whine escapes. “I hate this. I hate you for doing this to me, for making me feel things. I hate myself for what I’m about to do.”

When Lance wakes up, he'll inject him with some of the Flunitrazepam to keep him calm and out of it, and maybe that will finally convince his dick to get hard. Lance probably won't even know what's happening. It's a mercy. 

It’ll be easy, after this. He’ll either shoot Lance or OD him somehow on whatever he has under the sink or maybe he'll just dump the entirety of the Flunitrazepam into his veins until Lance suffocates to death underneath him when his lungs start to fail, and then he’ll follow soon afterwards after raping him. No one will find their bodies for a long, long time, or maybe never at all, he’s been careful giving away his address to people since even before Lance. The two of them will stay together forever. 

This is what he wanted, right?

Right?

So why does he feel so sick?

“I’m sorry,” he sobs, pulling Lance’s jeans down to his thighs. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry -”

“Keith…?”

He stops.

Lance is looking up at him, tears already gathering behind his thick eyelashes. He blinks blearily a couple of times, struggling to keep his gaze fixed on Keith as he reaches up for him. His hands slide against Keith's shoulders, a lost attempt at a hug that just has Lance trying to hold onto him. 

“Dun feel so good,” he whispers, obviously still under the effects of the severe dehydration. He's probably not even aware of what he's saying, but yet.

But yet.

His hearts stutters.

The younger boy holds on to him, his hands trembling as he fights to stay awake, staring up at Keith with such innocence. The same innocence Keith was just going to take by force. “Why ya crying?”

Like that, a dam inside Keith breaks. He lets go of Lance’s jeans and bows over his sweethearts chest, wailing out all his pain and built up grief into the bunched up fabric. His own hands come to hold onto the shirt in an iron grip, like a child holding onto a parent. 

Like how he used to hold onto his father's shirt as he sat in his lap in the middle of the night, both of them staring up at the same stars.

“ _I’m sorry please I’m sorry - !_ ”

Clumsily, Lance’s hand comes up to pat his head, eyes already sliding shut once more. “‘Sa okay. Jus dun do it again, kay? 'm sorry too.”

Shakily, he nods into Lance’s shirt, stifling his whimpers as surrenders to the siren call of sleep, going limp underneath him and his hand falling off of Keith’s head and into the mattress next to him with a quiet ‘thunk’. Still breathing. Clothes still half pulled off. 

Any resolve he had until this moment dissolves as he listens to Lance breathe underneath him, the steady time of his heart. He closes his eyes, pressing his ear firmly against the quiet  _thunk-thunk_ of his blood pumping. Thinks of how he used to do this with his father, before his father ran into a fire too big for him and never came back out again. 

But Lance is still here. He's not dead yet. There's still time.

He can…give Lance a second chance.  One more chance for them to fix what was broken and learn each other again. One more chance for them to fall in love, for Keith to do this right. 

But _only_ one more chance.

Next time Lance tries to leave him, he’ll strangle him first.

He doesn’t need Lance alive to fuck him.

**Author's Note:**

> Next: Meteor Shower


End file.
